The prevalence of VPN adoption in organizations is remarkable. In the past 20 years, companies experienced remote or hybrid work models voluntarily or compulsorily. For instance, the Pandemic forces companies to switch their work models to hybrid or remote. There is no other option for them to pursue their economical activities in lockdowns.
This transition brings some cybersecurity concerns because legacy solutions can not provide total security. Although have been used for many years, VPN (virtual private network) solutions show up in remote work security. Remote access VPN is a special type of VPN and mainly focuses on remote work security issues. Here, we will explain how to configure remote access VPN in your organization by giving some tips that you should consider.
1. Select the right VPN solution for your business
It is crucial to decide on the most efficient VPN solution for businesses. Since remote work models have been increasing day after day, companies have started to look for further protection for their company assets. As a company owner or a remote employee, you have to figure out what your company requires or you require regarding online security.
File sharing, remote access to company resources, video conferences, and user profiles are vital components of any workplace in today’s climate. From the corporation's point of view, they have to provide secure file-sharing opportunities to their workforce. It is a must for remote employees to share, download, and upload business files to continue work. However, some companies have no idea about securing company files from external attacks or internal breaches. Here’s where the remote VPN solution shows up. Organizations that adopt remote VPN solutions can securely manage file-sharing processes without compromising on velocity or productivity. Because we know that the VPN simply creates an encrypted tunnel between the company resources and the end-point users.
2. Determine your business type
For selecting the right VPN solution, companies should consider their business type and work model. For instance, if a company conducts a business that relies on personal interactions and processes data intensely, they need further data protection solutions. They can manage and adjust their remote VPNs according to their data safety requirements. On the other hand, as the name refers, remote access VPN is highly recommendable for remote or hybrid work models. You can consider other VPN solutions which fitted the on-premises network more if your company does not have a remote workforce.
3. Take user credentials into account
To configure remote access VPN totally, businesses should define, determine, classify, and manage user credentials. There are usually two types of user credentials. One is employee credentials that mostly rely on job descriptions and missions, and the other one is client or third-party contractor credentials. Here, we want to discuss employee credentials and how to administer them.
By using remote access VPN, companies can avoid unauthorized access to the HQ resources and other company assets. Company managers or IT specialists can decide who will have full access to the company resources. Giving privileges to employees is not a good idea in terms of business cybersecurity. Sometimes we witness that companies grant their employees unlimited access to company data. So they expanded the attack surface and increase the possibility of a data breach.
The solution is to regulate credential authorizations and limit access permissions according to employees' requirements. Remote access VPN helps companies to give adequate authorization to their employees, not more.
4. Authentication Protocols
Being sure that only authorized employees can access your resources is vital for your company’s security. Organizations make credential authentications to be sure that an authorized person attempts to access company data. On the other hand, we know that usernames and passwords are not safe enough in today’s cyber world that full of dangers. Passwords are easily deciphered and even inexperienced hackers can figure out to decipher your password.
Besides the applications and the software that create robust passwords that are hard to decipher, several protocols promise safe credential authentication.
Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
MFA is one of the methods. As you can infer from the name, two or more authentications are needed to gain access authorization. Besides passwords, the user should verify their credential by several methods. One of them is biometrics such as face recognition, eye scanner, or fingerprints are the other methods. The instant codes that are generated by smartphones are another option for MFA.
Certificate-based authentication
This authentication method takes advantage of digital certificates of users, devices, or machines. The certificate contains a digital signature to provide authentication and the digital identity of a user. Servers evaluate users’ credibilities by confirming their credentials.
5. Data Encryption
Data encryption is one of the vital elements of any security plan. Both externals and inside users put company data on the line. On the other hand, data became the most crucial asset of any organization in today’s world. Businesses run their work by using personal data and authorities make regulations regarding data protection procedures. So we can clearly say that data security considers anyone from small to large businesses.
VPNs have been always a good idea for avoiding data breaches in companies. However, now the conditions have been changing and new situations require new safety solutions. Remote work is one of them. Legacy cybersecurity methods can not meet the requirements of remote work models in terms of data security. In remote work, even the employees pose a risk against the company’s private data due to the risk of breaches and attacks.
Activating safety protocols is a good idea for monitoring and securing remote employees. Sensitive company data and accessed information should be encrypted. Because, even if your data or information has been theft, they can not use them for malicious purposes. Encryption is crucial to protect confidential and valuable data safe even if a breach happens. On the other hand, data backup must be provided because data loss is another risk for companies.
Besides the legal obligations rooted in national and international regulations, companies should protect their data against loss. We can not imagine any business in today’s circumstances can manage to run its daily work without the data resources. As a company owner, you must be sure that your remote work security solutions offer data backups and will not let you down in case of a catastrophe.
Last Remarks
Configuring a remote access VPN is vital in modern businesses. Since VPNs are the main security solutions in the cybersecurity world, managers have been adopting them in their companies. However, circumstances have been changing and security requirements are also evolving. Remote access VPN meets the new remote work business requirements. regarding remote access VPN configuration can accelerate your business security without forcing you to compromise on productivity or efficiency.